Food For One Dollar

When Jonathan Blaustein bought 10 early-season organic blueberries for $1, he was a little upset by the price tag. It wasn’t the visual contrast — one dime to one blueberry — that perturbed him. It was the fact that six weeks earlier, he had purchased 17 organic blueberries from Chile for the same price.

“The blueberries from Chile were almost half the cost of the blueberries from 800 miles away,” said Mr. Blaustein, a cook-turned-photographer who arranged the berries in two neat rows of five and photographed them, in all of their organic goodness.

He did the same thing with seven packages of shrimp-flavored ramen noodles, 48 tea biscuits from Spain, a little pile of rice.

One dollar's worth of double cheeseburger from McDonalds

It was a cheeseburger that initially encouraged Mr. Blaustein, 36, to pursue his project, “The Value of a Dollar.” When the economy was in the midst of its downward spiral, he visited a fast-food chain in New Mexico, where he lives.

“On one menu they had a cheeseburger for a dollar,” he said. What caught his eye, though, was another menu, which featured a double cheeseburger for the same price. That additional piece of meat, and the extra slice of cheese, somehow didn’t change the price. So he set out to see what he could buy for one dollar in New Mexico.

One dollar's worth of shurfine flour

One dollar's worth of organic grapefruit from the Natural Food Store

One dollar's worth of conventional grapefruit from Supersave

One dollar's worth of tomatillos from Mexico

One dollar's worth of candy neckaces from China

One dollar's worth of panko breadcrumbs from Japan

One dollar's worth of shurfine white bread

One dollar's worth of potted meat food product

One dollar's worth of organic basmati rice from Whole Foods

One dollar's worth of tea biscuits from Spain

One dollar's worth of shrimp flavored Ramen noodles

One dollar's worth of beef shank from Supersave

One dollar's worth of pork floss

One dollar's worth of fenugreek seeds from India

One dollar's worth of saffron

One dollar's worth of side salad with ranch dressing from Burger King

One dollar's worth of escargot from Indonesia

One dollar's worth of early season organic blueberries from California